Navigating around off shore wind farms

[Pagetslady]

Does anybody have a link to charts and rules relating to the wind farms in the NW area of Barrow in Furness an up to date one that is.
All I can find are so out of date they do not include all of them they seem to be getting bigger by the day.
Mike

 

[prv]

Genuine question, but are the changes not being included in Admiralty weekly NtMs?

Pete

 

[tillergirl]

http://www.4coffshore.com/offshorewind/ is generally the best 'overview' I've found. Not the easiest to navigate to all the info it has (which is extensive). The general UK rule is generally 50m safety exclusion zone around installed turbines and substations and 500m exclusion zone during installation and then later maintenance such as diving, damaged turbine etc. In the Thames Estuary, we may sail through the several Wind Farms (in Belgium and Holland, that is not permitted).

The Admiralty NtMs do include the buoyage changes such as preparing, during installation and during the installation other major news such as cable laying. But some local companies will be issuing weekly local notices giving great detail. The London Array is one of the best: have issued weekly notices during the installation and now still maintains weekly NtMs about the maintenance. The Galloper Windfarm (again East Coast) are supplying good regular local NtM's about installation (they are just about to lay the cables). Dong - who own the Barrow Windfarm I believe - were not the best about information in the Thames Estuary - not silent but not the best.

Oh, a PS, I believe Barrow were intending to apply for a 232m(?) non anchoring corridor to avoid the cable but I can't find anything more specific.

 

[Pagetslady]

thank you for that, i had found that but it is difficult to tell what is still being constructed, unfortunately it dont fancy making my way up wind through the turbines. I found it to be 14 nm added to my passage plan if I sailed around the whole lot shown on my plotter. I have made the passage from Barrow to IOM many times before the wind farms arrived but Sunday was the first time since. Problem I guess was really the NNW win anyway I dont think I really wanted to go so went back to Fleetwood marina and slept.
Mike

 

[SteveA]

Mike,

Tom Watson sends out regular updates for all of the Irish sea windfarms to all of the clubs around the bay; someone at your club should be getting these. WOW3 & 4 are currently under construction and are therefore no go areas. If you need any more info please pm me.
Steve

 

[[163233]]

Genuine question, but are the changes not being included in Admiralty weekly NtMs?

It's becoming something of a deluge up here, you could spend all weekend reading through them.

I notice that the Navionics web app has the Walney extension, might be easier to update charts from that than to plough through the NTMs.
(https://webapp.navionics.com/#boating@8&key=m{|hIr~lU)

Looks like the proposed IoM farm will be right in the way of the northern route around the existing ones, we're getting slowly bricked in.

 

[[3889]]

unfortunately it dont fancy making my way up wind through the turbines.

Any reason why not? The turbines are the best part of 1/2 a mile apart and not easy to ignore. Would you not beat up a channel 5 cables wide? I know you're not alone in being averse to sailing through wind farms but, from those I know who share your view, I get the impression that it is more to do with an irrational fear of being hit by the rotors rather than running into a pillar.
I can see why effective passage making in the Irish Sea is becoming almost impossible if you skirt the windfarms; I sailed from Preston to Menai last year and with the 500m exclusion zones around gas installations, the Hamilton Platform TSS and Gwenty Mor what would have been a close fetch on one ebb tide turned into a grim beat into the flood.

 

[penberth3]

...Oh, a PS, I believe Barrow were intending to apply for a 232m(?) non anchoring corridor to avoid the cable but I can't find anything more specific.

After a bit of mental arithmetic, that could be an eighth of a NM? Why don't they just call it 200 or 250m?

 

[Pagetslady]

Any reason why not? The turbines are the best part of 1/2 a mile apart and not easy to ignore. Would you not beat up a channel 5 cables wide? I know you're not alone in being averse to sailing through wind farms but, from those I know who share your view, I get the impression that it is more to do with an irrational fear of being hit by the rotors rather than running into a pillar.
I can see why effective passage making in the Irish Sea is becoming almost impossible if you skirt the windfarms; I sailed from Preston to Menai last year and with the 500m exclusion zones around gas installations, the Hamilton Platform TSS and Gwenty Mor what would have been a close fetch on one ebb tide turned into a grim beat into the flood.

To be honest I had not given the blades a thought, the thought of tacking anywhere against the tide off Barrow is enough to put you off completely, are you sure they are half a mile apart? I know that if I followed the autoroute created by Navionics it would have added 14 nm to my passage to IOM any way I went back to Fleetwood having done 35 nm and had a great sail back as it has turned out the weather has been rubbish anyway, doesnt look much better for this weekend
Mike

 

[[3889]]

To be honest I had not given the blades a thought, the thought of tacking anywhere against the tide off Barrow is enough to put you off completely, are you sure they are half a mile apart?

 

[[163233]]

View attachment 65391

Are those post locations reliable or just indications of a wind farm?

 

[[163233]]

Are those post locations reliable or just indications of a wind farm?

Answering my own question...



It seems they are reliable, the above is from matching up satellite imagery from https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/ with Navionics web app of Barrow windfarm.

The splodges are from the cleaned-up satellite image and correspond to turbines, the navionics chart has been warped to fit the corners (the chart isn't projected from the satellite's position). But they do match up better than I expected.

The apparently missing one 4 up on the south west edge is actually on the satellite image, just my rough clean up blitzed it.

I guess I should have more faith in the mapping organisations.